Moonlight Water Read Free

stupid.
    Robbie prodded himself to full height and shot a look down at Nora. Homely, tough, middle-aged, armored in classy suits and iron-gray hair. Outspoken, honest, hard-nosed. At this moment he hated her. At any time he would refuse to negotiate with her. That’s what he had a lawyer for, his best friend, Gianni Montella.
    Robbie hurled the words he spoke like boulders. “I’ll be gone day after tomorrow.” He let them feel the weight of the boulders. “Anything to say, say it to Gianni.”
    Georgia blinked tears downward.
    Robbie clenched his stomach to keep from throwing up. He turned and slammed his back to them.
    As their shoes clicked and padded away, they sounded out Robbie’s silent words all the way to the front door. I despise you. I despise this house. I despise this too-too Marin County. I despise the music business. And, even more mutely, I despise myself as a fool.
    At the heavy, carved door Georgia turned. “Robbie?” She waited until he looked around. “It’s not just about Nora. It’s about you. I can’t find you. I lost us.”
    He ignored the words. Though she shut the door gently, he heard a slam, one that sounded like it was inside him.

 
    4
    HOW DO WE GET THERE FROM HERE?
    Robbie sat at his own bar, drank two Anchor Steams, and put the third back. He knew what to do—go ask the one person who always had wise words for him. Robbie needed his grandfather, and he needed him big-time. Top of his car down, time for a visit.
    In his Alfa he zipped through the tunnel just north of the city and cruised into the world’s finest vista—the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay. The city’s spires caught light and held it. To the west stretched the vast Pacific. It was a perfect day with the kind of clarity that comes rarely, an extraordinary gift. He could have seen, maybe, a hundred miles out to sea, but he didn’t glance that way. He listened to his own heartbeat. That was surprising. The double thump drummed freedom, freedom, freedom .
    Grandpa, here I come.
    Robbie’s only relative now lived in the Columbarium, a sanctum of the deified dead in the middle of Pacific Heights. Like a grand old dowager, the Columbarium faced the world in the style of her youth, Beaux Arts, a high-flown elegance.
    Her function was simple: She housed the ashes of San Francisco’s finest and quirkiest. Here they rested forever, in a fairyland that fulfilled their mannered or freakish dreams.
    Grandfather Angus Stuart first brought Robbie here, just after he came home from his stint in the army. Though the Columbarium had a caretaker and guide, Grandfather Angus conducted his own tour. “This is the end you come to,” he said, “when you waste your life on society.” Grandfather Angus was a lifelong socialist and had started as an IWW man, one of Harry Bridges’s stevedores during the days when unions ruled the docks.
    â€œLook here now. Here’s a man gone to his rest, and on his urn are two martini shakers. Sums up his life, don’t it, and a wasted life it was. Here’s another’n, gone to his grave with a big cigar and a highball glass for a memorial.” Grandpa snorted in disgust.
    â€œNow this lady, per’aps she wasn’t such a wastrel.” Her niche featured a big ceramic baseball in front of a painted backdrop and tiny players surrounding it. “Loved the game, she did, and the Giants. A magnetic key turns on that little light, and the robotic players make motions of throwing, catching, and hitting. Those grown-ups and kids in the bleachers there, they cheer for the team. Nothing beats passion. It’s the only reason for being.
    â€œLook here, now, at this niche.” It bore two tobacco canisters behind a glass wall, Balkan Sobranie brand, but no legend bearing the name of the deceased. Robbie was antsy—the place would give anyone the creeps. “Pay attention! I want you to